It has become common practice to mount one part of a multipart electrical connector to a mounting panel and to detachably mate a second part of the connector with the first part. When the two parts are mated it is usually desired that they remain together for long periods of time under varying environmental situations. To accomplish such a result reliance is usually made upon the combined insertion-extraction forces of the individual electrical contacts of the connectors. However, in some applications it is desired to use a positive locking force to insure that the two parts of the connector remain mated until manually released.
To compound the problem several other considerations must be considered. In actual practice it is desired to mount the connectors in close proximity to each other and thus bulky locking arrangements are not acceptable. A second consideration is that the cable hoods of the various connectors have at least two differing heights. When it is desired to interchange connectors having different size hoods the locking mechanism must be arranged to accept the different size with a minimum of effort and, if possible, without requiring removal of the permanently mounted connector portion. Still a third constraint is that the locking mechanism must be inexpensive to manufacture.